Meat for the Beast
by Vorcha Girl
Summary: This is the story of the Mad Batarian Prophet on Omega, and how his God lies to him (kind of) and convinces him to save Rennah Shepard's life (probably) in order to save his home from the reapers (technically).


_Disclaimer: I don't own Mass Effect :(_

**A/N - This is a story about the Mad Batarian Prophet on Omega, and how his God lies to him _(kind of)_ and convinces him to save Rennah Shepard's life_ (probably)_ in order to save his home from the reapers (technically). He's an unlikable character that does terrible things - but I felt like his story was worth telling!  
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**It was written as part of Aria's Afterlife January fic challenge, though I kind of twisted the '_It's A Wonderful Life'_ theme around!  
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><p>The batarian huddled on a damp piece of cardboard. Dank, tepid air moved around him like the foul breath of some great creature, as though the station itself were trying to swallow him whole. <em>Not a bad analogy<em>, he thought as he shivered in the grime and filth, _Omega is a monster that gobbles people up and spits them out as chewed up meat_.

They called him mad, but he alone knew the truth.

He'd come here years ago to make a living in the mines, but all he found was hardship and despair. Omega was a trap, designed to snare the unwary and the gullible, and he had been both. What little money he made with his job was frittered away on basic living expenses like food and water, and the remainder was never enough to cover his exorbitant rent.

No matter how hard he worked, or how much he earned, he'd fallen further and further into debt with his crooked land lords, and eventually he'd been convinced to take up a second, more questionable, job. What a fool he'd been. He'd made mistake after mistake in his desperate bid to get ahead on Omega, but getting involved with the gangs had been the end of the line.

Running drugs turned into selling drugs, selling drugs turned into taking them, and his life quickly spiralled out of control. Now it was all gone, and he'd been left with nothing; no job, no home, no money. His days were spent wandering amongst the stalls and shops in the Gozu District, reading from the _Word_ and raining hate upon the filth that infested the station.

_Rats! Vermin! Scum!_

He cursed them all! Each and every human was a blight on the galaxy, but few listened to his words and even less gave the _Word_ any thought after they walked away. He was nothing to them. Rightfully so. The only thing he had left were the clothes on his back, the _Word_, and the burning hope that the painful red sand withdrawal he was going through would fade soon.

_He itched. He burned. He ached._

Death was preferable to the slow wasting rot that had infested his once strong batarian body. It was a rot of the mind and of the soul, and it ate him away so fast that some days he imagined he was already nothing but meat. He'd heard whispers of the plague on the lower levels of Omega, a plague that was killing off batarians by the hundreds, and he often dreamed of letting the plague take him too.

He opened his eyes, staring hatefully at the young quarian who had stupidly set up his store in the grime-caked alleyway. The fool talked of making money and returning to his flotilla, but there was no escaping Omega once she had her claws in you. Soon _he_ would feel the rot as the monster devoured him, and then _he_ would be a corpse on the street; another hollow soul wasted away to nothing.

Cackling, the sound like broken glass in his throat, the batarian heaved himself to his feet and swayed unsteadily as he contemplated the fastest way down to the lower levels. Better to seek death by plague than to lie around and wait for death to find him, he decided as he clutched the _Word_ to his chest. His vision swam as he tried to walk, and he blindly crashed into the quarian's stall, laughing madly as he knocked the boy's precious salvage to the floor.

"No point." He croaked deliriously when the boy cried out in alarm. "You're meat for the beast, boy. Give up now and save yourself the struggle."

The quarian shoved him away with a gasp and the batarian stumbled on, his crackling, broken laugh echoing drunkenly back and forth in the corridor. His filthy robes stank of sweat and piss, and he laughed harder to see the meat-bag humans draw away as he approached, as though worried his stench would infect them too. He hoped it did. Nothing would please him more than to see all the humans reduced to reeking corpses.

He staggered blindly through Omega's winding walkways, snarling crazily at anyone who came too close to him. His vision danced, his head thumped, and a strange buzzing sounded in his ears as he wandered down an empty corridor. The shadows seemed to spin and swirl, and everything flickered as a voice drifted out of the darkness, a voice that was terrible and wonderful all at once.

"_You've come."_

He blinked as a batarian woman, beautiful and sleek, appeared from the shadows. One moment the corridor was clear, and the next she was there, wrapped in darkness, with a smile on her face. Laughing, she reached out her hands and touched his face, as though greeting a long lost friend.

_She smells like_ _Aratoht, _he thought crazily_, like home_; _of spices and wood smoke and family_. His chest tightened and regret coiled around his heart as he thought of his home. Unexpectedly, a painful spasm wracked his body, and he sobbed as he fell to the ground. His stomach cramped sharply as it demanded the drug he'd been feeding it for so long. In that moment, he'd have sold his soul for even a small bag of red sand, but his soul wasn't what the pushers wanted.

Only credits.

He crawled to his feet but fell again as his body was wracked with a stronger convulsion, his muscles tightening as he contorted painfully and shrieked. It felt as though his very bones were turning to acid, burning him from the inside, and he frantically tore at his skin, trying to rip the flesh from his limbs. The pain surged again and he writhed in agony on the ground, vomiting bile and blood until his strength was gone and his belly was empty.

Finally, the pain receded and he looked up into the eyes of an angel.

The female batarian knelt beside him, her hands, now gentle and cool, smoothed over his brow as she wiped away his stale sweat. She whispered soothingly to him and her voice chased the pain away. His stomach settled, his headache cleared and the crawling bugs under his skin faded away. For the first time in days his body was still, his mind was calm and his spirit was strong.

She gazed down at him, her dark eyes serene and a beautiful smile curved across her lips. With a gentle purr she took his hands and pulled him to his feet, then retrieved his book of the _Word_. Her eyes twinkled as she silently flicked through the pages, pausing to look over the phrases and lines he had underlined. When she was finished, she handed it back.

"_Why do you want to die?"_

Her voice was low, throaty and velvety-smooth like a fine batarian shard wine, and he shivered as it wrapped itself around him. He glared at her resentfully, squirming as her gaze bored into his relentlessly, demanding the answer to her question. He tried to resist, to keep his mouth shut and say nothing, but he spoke almost without realising it.

"I'm already dead," he rasped in his ugly broken voice. "My body just doesn't know it."

She laughed, and her laugh slid around him like her voice had. _"You're not dead, only tired. Omega has drained you, but you will persevere. The Word demands it."_

"The _Word?" _He clutched the book tightly in his hands. "What does it care about me? I'm a maggot crawling on the corpse of Omega …"

"_No."_ She interrupted him gently, kindly. _"You are needed. The future for the Hegemony is dark and a great disaster looms before us. It has been foreseen."_

_Who are you? _He desperately wanted to ask the question, but the answer swirled inside of his head already. She was a shade, a ghost, an emissary of the _Word_. The knowledge beat inside his heart and swam inside his mind.

But why would the _Word_ need him?

The prophet shook his head in confusion. "I have nothing. I am nothing. Why would the _Word_ choose me?"

"_The future is dark without you. See for yourself …"_

She smiled again and bared her sharp teeth, then took his hand and pulled him closer until his body brushed hers. His filthy robes, reeking of Omega's slums, brushed against her clean clothes, but she didn't seem to mind as her hands grasped him to her tightly. Her face, a smooth coffee brown, hovered over his and her eyes, wide and black, drank him in. Mesmerised, he found himself swaying as he fell into her eyes and lost himself in the darkness.

The darkness held horror.

He saw his home colony on Aratoht in flames; men, women and children burning as their world crumbled around them. The land was scorched and the sky was seared as giant shapes filled the air. _Reapers_. The word drifted through his mind in her voice, and horror welled up inside of him like heavy lead, choking him as he watched the colony fall.

Screams of terror, so close they almost deafened him, echoed through the air as monstrous beasts, _twisted batarians_, ravaged the land. Those that were spared were taken away, _meat for the beasts,_ and born again as more fearsome mutant creatures. He saw a small girl child, no more than six years old, try to defend herself with a weapon only to be caught by two creatures who proceeded to rip her apart.

It was too much! He closed his eyes. He screamed. He struggled. He fought. No more! _No more! NO MORE!_

And then the vision, _the future_, was gone and he stood in Omega, reeking of filth and clutching the _Word._ He swayed dizzily and swallowed the bile that rose in his throat, the horror of the vision lurking at the back of his mind. He could still smell the coppery blood and taste the acrid smoke on his tongue …

_"It is better to die free, than to become their slaves,"_ she told him sadly.

"How?" He seized one wrist and gazed into her eyes. "How does this happen?"

"_The reapers." _

She said it simply, as though it would answer all of his question, but it didn't and he squeezed her slender wrist more tightly, terror overriding caution.

"No, tell me how the reapers reach us?" The angel glanced down at his hand on her wrist and he released her, his body moving on its own. He tried again, "how do I stop this? Tell me!"

A smile graced her lips once more and she nodded behind him. _"The human will prevent the reapers from destroying the Bahak system."_

"That _blight_?" He growled unhappily as a woman walked past the entrance to their corridor, her shiny black armour reflecting the lights. Without thinking he spat in her direction, revulsion crawling along his skin. "How can the _worms_ of the galaxy, the ones who are the servants of the reapers, be the ones to stop them?"

The beautiful batarian took his arm and walked him to the edge of the corridor, gesturing at the woman as she spoke. _"It is true that all humans are filth, but this worm is different. She is a worm with a stinger, and she will use her string to stop the reapers from invading Aratoht."_

"She will save my home?"

For a moment the angel didn't speak, then she nodded_. "So long as Commander Shepard lives, no reaper will harm the Bahak System, or any planet within it."_ Her low voice thrummed pleasantly across his skin. _"There are those who would stop her though, and the Word has charged you with protecting her while she is here on Omega."_

He watched through narrowed eyes as the human paused outside of Harrods's Emporium. She looked over his wares and spoke to the stupid mountain of flesh as though hoping he would say something intelligent.

_Foolish scum!_

The prophet spat in her directions again. Even looking at the human woman made him ill. Her skin was pasty white, her inadequate twin eyes were a repulsive violet shade and her face was surrounded by a shaggy mane of vile black hair. She looked disgusting, like a pyjack that someone had dressed in clothes and a wig.

"Why me?" He tore his gaze off the creature and looked back at the angel. "Why does the _Word_ want me to do this?"

"_Because the assassin who hunts her will not suspect you, the Word has foreseen his blindness."_ The smile on her lips became a smirk, and she pointed at a volus who was standing quietly near some crates by the corridor railing. _"Vas Daran plans to assassinate her with a sidearm secreted in his suit."_

The prophet let out a wheezy cackle. "A volus? The _Word_ wants me to protect the human from a volus?"

He laughed harder and the angel beside him shot him a dark look. _"Be still, prophet."_ Immediate his laughter ceased and his body froze. _"Stop the assassination and you will save her life. Save her life and she will stop the reapers from destroying your home. Understand?"_

Her power faded and he drew in a rough breath, nodding quickly. "Yes. If the _Word_ commands it, I will save the lowly human."

"_The Word commands it,"_ she confirmed.

He turned to speak to her again, to ask her questions about the _Word's _plans for him after this, but she was gone. Had the air beside him not smelled faintly of Aratoht, he would have assumed he was hallucinating. But the angel had been real, he was sure of that, which meant the _Word_ required his action.

The prophet glanced around; the corridor was bustling with people, but most kept their heads down as they walked, or were busy browsing stores. No one paid him any attention, nor did they look at the plump little volus hovering near the merchant crates. _Yes_, he decided, _it would be easy to get rid of this fat little troll._

No one bothered about the maggots on Omega.

He moved quickly, joining the jostling crowd in the corridor and letting the current carry him towards the little volus. When he stepped out of the stream and stopped beside him, the worm didn't even bother to look up, he just continued to watch the human woman. Pride surged through the prophet as he stared down at the creature_; _he would kill it.

"I have no spare credits." The volus' dull little voice abruptly sounded from inside his suit, and he paused to draw in a gasp of air. _Gsssp._ "Leave me, beggar." _Gsssp._ "I have important business ..."

The prophet smiled as he reached down and seized the suit's air tubes. For a moment he held them, savouring the sensation of holding the volus' life in his hands, then with a deft tug, he pulled them free. Vas Daran's words died on his lips and he let out a muffled cry as he fumbled at his suit, trying to seal the breech.

"Silly worm." The batarian hissed as he casually knocked the volus closer to the railing. "The _Word_ cares not for your business."

With a final push, he pushed the little body off the walkway, and Vas Daran toppled into the depths of Omega. The prophet leaned over the railing and watched as his fat little body disappeared into the darkness, bouncing off the lower level railings and spinning into the black beneath. The only thing that lay below were the mines, and _if_ they found his bloated little corpse, no one would care who he was; on Omega everyone eventually became meat for the beast.

Smirking, the prophet glanced around and, seeing that no one had paid his actions any attention, he stepped up on the nearest crate and began to preach. His voice, gruff and loud, carried easily and a crowd formed, watching him with interest as he madly shouted slurs against the minor races. _The best way to stay hidden_, a voice whispered inside his head, _is to be seen. You can't have killed the volus if you were spreading the Word …_

"Humans are a blight on galactic purity!" He ranted loudly, a fiery surge of power spreading within him as he thought of all the lives he had saved in the Bahak system. His eyes glanced over the crowd in front of him and pointed at one of the mousy-humans. "You sir! You are a blight! And you! And you, human." Amongst the crowd was the rat-like human he had saved, and he moved his finger to point at her. "And you, madam! You are _filth_!"

She shrugged, ignoring him as they all would, and walked away. He didn't care. He had saved her, and in return she would stop the reapers from invading the Bahak System; she would save his people.

For now, he would spend his days on Omega, but one day soon he would return home to Aratoht, and tell his people how the _Word_ had saved them from the reapers.

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><p><strong>AN - ******Poor ol' Mad Prophet! Okay, not really - he's an asshole. But **I wonder how upset he was when Shepard blew up the Alpha relay and killed everyone in the Bahak System? I hope you enjoyed this silly little fic - feedback is greatly appreciated!**


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